Ireland

by Oliver MacDonagh

Published in 1977 and now reissued with a new introduction, this book serves well as a general, accessible interpretation of modern Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Described by its historian author Oliver MacDonagh (1924-2002) as a ""very small book with very large themes,"" it rapidly reached the status of a classic and remains a thought-provoking survey of Ireland from the Act of Union of 1800, which MacDonagh describes as ""the matrix of modern Irish history,"" until modern times. He describes with broad and perceptive strokes the traumatic experience of Ireland's being assimilated by, and resisting assimilation into, a powerful and alien empire.

146 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Oliver Ormond Gerard Michael MacDonagh, was a professor of Irish history who made a particular study of the historic relationship between Ireland and the United Kingdom. He was educated at University College and Kings Inns, Dublin, and Cambridge University, and was W. K. Hancock Professor of History at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University.

Reviews

[Daniel]

Some useful material on the ideological bases of Irish nationalism (the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Neo-Jacobinism).